Mc complete state national

T he bald eagle, a bird that lives only in North America, is sometimes mistaken for an idea. Take the Great Seal of the United States: The eagle clutches an olive branch in one claw, a set of 13 arrows in the other. His wings stretch out tall and wide from behind a shield, and his fulsome beak holds a ribbon inscribed with Latin: “ E pluribus unum .” That is a collage of symbols about peace and war and history and unity, not a bird. A real bald eagle is made of flesh and feathers and talons — a thing of nature, not a pastiche of concepts. Noble virtues do not map neatly onto apex predators, a fact that troubled Benjamin Franklin as early as 1784. In a letter to his daughter, he wrote: “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly.” But the first time Will Harris saw a bald eagle on his farm, six years ago, Franklin’s lesson was one he had not yet learned. Harris, the owner … [Read more...] about When the National Bird Is a Burden

A loud explosion which shook the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area Sunday was caused by fighter jets scrambled to intercept an unresponsive plane, authorities stated. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from an Air National Guard base near Atlantic City, New Jersey and two others took off from Joint Base Andrews after an unauthorized Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft made its way through DC and northern VA airspace, Fox News reported . In order to catch up with the unresponsive plane, pilots were authorized to travel at super sonic speeds, creating a sonic boom heard by residents throughout the region, a press release from NORAD stated . Pilots intercepted the Cessna at approximately 3:20 p.m. Sunday and found the pilot of the aircraft to be “unresponsive.” The Cessna later crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Northern Virginia, the release stated. (RELATED: Secret Service Broke Chain Of Command After 9/11 Without Bush And Cheney Knowing, New Declassified … [Read more...] about Sonic Boom Rocks Nation’s Capital As Fighter Jet Intercepts Plane That Later Crashed

Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and more than a dozen other GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over a recent policy to address an expected surge of illegal migrants at the southern border, according to a statement from his office. The Biden administration rule Miyares is contesting was implemented to mitigate an expected surge of migrants at the southern border when Title 42, a Trump-era expulsion order, ended on May 11 which made migrants ineligible for asylum if they pass through another safe country before coming to the U.S. Miyares, however, argues that the rule has many exceptions that allow migrants to enter the country, including using a phone app to book entry appointments, claiming they face imminent danger in their home country and having their asylum request denied in another country, the lawsuit argues . (RELATED: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin To Deploy National Guard Troops To Southern Border) “The rebuttable presumption … [Read more...] about More Than A Dozen GOP States Sue Biden Admin Over Recent Border Policy, Claim It’s ‘Encouraging More Border Crossings’

Illustration: Alicia Tatone In May 2017, Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey , crashing through the first of many important democratic norms. While FBI directors technically can be fired, they generally serve ten-year terms for the express purpose of ensuring their political independence and to ward off the inherent danger of an unscrupulous president turning the bureau into a partisan weapon to protect his friends and harass his enemies. There were banner headlines and special reports invoking Nixon’s infamous Saturday Night Massacre . Conservatives uneasily justified the extraordinary maneuver as a necessary onetime response to Comey’s messy involvement in the 2016 election . “Given the recent controversies surrounding the director, I believe a fresh start will serve the FBI and the nation well,” said Senator Lindsey Graham . Comey had “made himself eminently fireable,” explained National Review . For a while, the national emergency was averted. The … [Read more...] about The GOP’s Authoritarian Acceleration

Shalanda Young couldn’t sleep. A small team of Biden administration officials had spent the past two days in intense negotiations with House Republicans in an attempt to avert a catastrophic government default. Ms. Young, the White House budget director, had been trading proposals on federal spending caps with negotiators deputized by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose Republican caucus was refusing to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit without deep cuts. Now, as she scrolled Netflix in search of “bad television” to distract her racing mind, Ms. Young had a sinking feeling. What if she cut a deal to reduce spending and raise the debt limit, only to see Republicans attempt to force through much deeper cuts when it came time to pass annual appropriations bills this fall? At work the next morning, Ms. Young asked her staff how to stop that from happening. They settled on a plan , which in essence would penalize Republicans’ most cherished spending programs if they failed … [Read more...] about Biden’s Debt Deal Strategy: Win in the Fine Print

Next month, Arthur Ashe Stadium will be teeming with Lacoste polo shirts and tasteful chinos. Tennis fans will order $69 caviar plates (one ounce of hackleback) and $17 signature cocktails (vodka, lemonade, raspberry liqueur and honeydew melon balls) at Lure Oyster Bar. The fortunate few will watch players like Federer, Williams and Nadal from suites paid for by credit card companies and white-shoe law firms. That is all in the future, though. This weekend, Arthur Ashe Stadium was teeming with, well, teenagers. There were also preteens (with their attendant parents) and men in their 20s, and occasionally 30s. But there were a lot of teenagers. They made their way to the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens to watch their favorite competitors play their favorite game: Fortnite. Kyle Giersdorf, 16, known as Bugha, won the first prize of $3 million . “Everything I’ve done, the grind, it’s all paid off,” he said. “It’s insane.” [ Read more about what … [Read more...] about At the Fortnite World Cup, Slurp Juice, Zip Lines and a Teenage Millionaire Winner